Simulation of effects of alternative strategies in health care services: The dynamics of lung cancer

People are living longer, there are new medical breakthroughs and, as a result, the cost of health care is rising. These trends are fuelling an increase in the need to understand health care services and the effects of different strategies and uncertainties, and to develop tools to support the political decision-making process. The lung cancer model presented in this paper is a proof-of-concept for the approach to modelling and simulating diseases and health care services using a system dynamics approach. Model- and simulation- based tools for decision-making are becoming increasingly commonplace in the industry. For health care, the widespread use of and definite positive impact of these methods require a common platform and forum spanning the whole range from groundlevel computational methods to interactive tools for collaboration and decision-making. The long-term goal is to create a dynamic simulation model library for the state of the health of the Finnish population in which the effects of alternative strategies, scenarios and uncertainties in the health care sector can be analysed and new and better practices developed.